James Jurin

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James Jurin
Royal Grammar School, Newcastle
Guy's Hospital
Academic advisorsRoger Cotes
William Whiston
Richard Bentley
Notable studentsMordecai Cary

James Jurin

FRCP (baptised 15 December 1684 – 29 March 1750) was an English scientist and physician, particularly remembered for his early work in capillary action and in the epidemiology of smallpox vaccination. He was a staunch proponent of the work of Sir Isaac Newton
and often used his gift for satire in Newton's defence.

Early life

Jurin's father was John Jurin, a London

Company of Surgeons.[2] From 1725 to 1732 he worked as a physician at Guy's Hospital, thereafter becoming a governor of the hospital. In 1724, Jurin married Mary Douglas, née Harris (died 1784), wealthy widow of Oley Douglas, and they had five daughters and one son.[2]

Medical practice

Jurin rose to a position of some eminence in medicine and science. He is described as "witty, satirical, ambitious, and professionally and financially successful".[2] He was a powerful advocate of the smallpox variolation, a procedure involving scratching pus or material from the scabs of smallpox sores into the veins of a non-immune person to create a mild case of the disease that would confer lifelong immunity. Jurin used an early statistical study to compare the risks of variolation with those from contracting the disease naturally. He studied mortality statistics for London for the fourteen years prior to 1723 and concluded that one fourteenth of the population had died from smallpox, up to 40 percent during epidemics.[3] He advertised in the Proceedings of the Royal Society for readers to report their personal and professional experiences and received over sixty replies, most from other physicians or surgeons,[2] but most significantly from Thomas Nettleton who reported his own calculations from his experience in several communities in Yorkshire.[3] Jurin's analysis concluded that the probability of death from variolation was roughly 1 in 50, while the probability of death from naturally contracted smallpox was 1 in 7 or 8. He published his results in a series of annual pamphlets, An Account of the Success of Inoculating the Small-Pox (1723–1727). His work was very influential in establishing smallpox variolation in England some seventy years before Edward Jenner introduced the more effective method of "vaccination" using cowpox material in place of human smallpox.[2] Jurin claimed that he had given "plain Proof from Experience and Matters of Fact that the Small Pox procured by inoculation ... is far less Dangerous than the same Distemper has been for many Years in the Natural Way."[3]

Newtonian scientist

Jurin was an "ardent Newtonian". He had studied under

specific gravity of blood, debating the heart with James Keill and Jean-Baptiste de Sénac. He wrote an addendum (1738) On Distinct and Indistinct Vision to Robert Smith's Opticks and engaged in a lively epistollary exchange with Robins on the topic.[2]

Controversy with Berkeley

In 1734, George Berkeley published The Analyst in which he attacked the calculus as flawed and ultimately absurd. Between 1734 and 1742, Jurin published over three hundred pages in robust rebuttal of Berkeley, many of them employing his favourite weapon of satire. The publications, some under the pseudonym Philalethes Cantabrigensis, included Geometry no Friend to Infidelity, or A Defence of Sir Isaac Newton & the British Mathematicians (1734)[7] and The Minute Mathematician, or The Freethinker no Just Thinker (1735).[8] Berkeley quickly withdrew from the debate and Jurin turned his attentions on Robins and Henry Pemberton.[2] The controversy was re-ignited years later when Jurin wrote negatively in response to Berkeley's promotion of tar-water.[9]

Later life

Jurin attended Robert Walpole as his physician and prescribed lixivium lithontripticum for Walpole's bladder stones. Jurin had used a similar prescription for himself but Walpole died and Jurin was blamed for his death, again necessitating an energetic pamphlet campaign to defend his practice.[2] Jurin died in London and was buried at St James Garlickhythe. His estate was valued at £35,000 (£4.9 million at 2003 prices[10]).[2]

His bust, by Peter Scheemakers stands in Trinity College, Cambridge.[11]

Offices and honours

Royal Society Royal College of Physicians
Fellow, (1717) Candidate, (1718)
Secretary, (1721–1727) Fellow, (1719)
Editor of volumes 31–34 of the Philosophical Transactions Censor five times during the period 1724–1750
Consilarius, with Richard Mead, (1749)
President, (1750)

References

  1. ^ "Jurin, James (JRN702J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Rusnock 2004.
  3. ^ a b c Porter 1997, p. 275.
  4. ^ Munk 1878, pp. 64–67.
  5. ^ "Jurin rule". McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. McGraw-Hill on Answers.com. 2003. Retrieved 5 September 2007.
  6. ^ Jurin 1719.
  7. ^ "Geometry No Friend to Infidelity". The 'Analyst' Controversy. D. R. Wilkins, Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 6 September 2007.
  8. ^ "The Minute Mathematician". The 'Analyst' Controversy. D. R. Wilkins, Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 6 September 2007.
  9. ^ Jurin, James (1744). A Letter to the Right Reverend the Bishop of Cloyne, Occasion'd by His Lordship's Treatise on the Virtues of Tar-Water. London: Jacob Robinson.
  10. ^ O'Donoghue, J.; et al. (2004). "Consumer Price Inflation since 1750". Economic Trends. 604: 38–46, March.
  11. ^ Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 by Rupert Gunnis

Works cited

See also

External links

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